If this television docudrama hasn't convinced you of David Bain's guilt then nothing will. As for the ECHR
it was not envisaged at its inauguration that it would be dealing with convicted murderers' right of release. As a rule I'd prefer to keep the judicial system of long-established Western democracies within the boundaries of the nation state.
The R v Jeremy Bamber 2002 appeal judgement was exhaustive and came after what was regarded by some as the less than thorough 1989 Lord Lane judgement.
I don't watch docudramas for the purpose of deciding on somebody's guilt, Steve. I look at the actual evidence. That's kind of the point. It's very telling about your mindset that you should say that, though.
The 2002 appeal judgment was certainly exhaustive in its scope, but I'm not sure it was exhaustive in the depth of understanding brought to the case and the evidence. Ultimately it could well be that Jeremy does not have, and never has had, one clinching argument that demonstrates conclusively the legal unsafety of the convictions; equally, it could be that there is not one single point that demonstrates his guilt and some small but important room for doubt.
I think it is a case that is stuck in that grey area and always will be and probably the question of whether Jeremy should be released rests on how much latitude an appeal court is prepared to give to the legal safety question, given the seriousness of the offences and the likely political fallout for the criminal justice system were it to be decided that the convictions were unsafe all along. It won't look good.
My view is that the convictions are not safe and should have been quashed in 2002. (I assume any attempted re-trial at that point would have been undermined by the Essex Police decision a few years earlier to destroy key evidence, so he would in due time have been released).
I think the Bain case suffers from a similar problem. It inhabits a grey area, and I must repeat my observation of how interesting it is that the UK Privy Council saw fit to quash Bain's convictions on grounds somewhat weaker than those that could avail Jeremy Bamber.
I disagree with you that judicial procedures should be confined to a nation-state, though there is a nuance to this. I don't believe what we might call an 'exterior court' should be supreme over domestic courts, and in point of fact the ECHR technically isn't. Besides, we entered into the Convention willingly under treaty and it was an Act of Parliament that domesticated Convention rights. It wasn't imposed on us. Although I am on the Right of the political spectrum, and I abhor European federalism of the sort advocated by supporters of the EU, at the same time I recognise that the domestic judiciary in England may benefit from the tempering influence of an exterior court that can examine and review cases free of domestic social and political pressures. I assume New Zealand retained its affiliation to the UK Privy Council until recently for similar reasons.
I somewhat agree with you about the ECHR's original intent. The Convention was established as a way of ensuring that certain European countries without strong traditions of due process and rule of law adhered to basic principles of decency, and Britain signed purely in order to add its weight and backing to the initiative, not because it was thought that Britain itself had been found wanting in these areas. Even so, we signed what we signed and the rules apply to us as much as anybody else, and in Continental criminal justice systems, the prevailing thinking has moved away from life sentences. The choice, if we don't like it, is that we either seek a 'national adjustment' of how the Convention applies to us on the basis that we have different legal traditions to other Convention states, or we withdraw from the Convention.